I Survived the Nazi Invasion 1944 Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  A Few More Thoughts and Facts

  Questions and Answers About World War II, the Holocaust, and the Partisan Fighters in Europe

  A Time Line of the Holocaust and World War II

  For More Information

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  All across Europe, Jewish people were being hunted.

  Millions were already dead.

  But eleven-year-old Max Rosen was determined to stay alive.

  Max thought that he and his little sister, Zena, would be safe in this forest.

  But now they were caught in a massive bombing attack.

  German planes roared through the sky, dropping 1,000-pound bombs that fell with shattering explosions.

  Kaboom!

  Enormous trees became flaming torches.

  Sparks showered down like burning snowflakes.

  Twisted metal and razor-sharp shards of wood blew up all around them.

  And this was only the beginning.

  Soon, soldiers with machine guns would stampede through the forest, hunting for people who had survived the explosions and fires. Anyone they caught would be shot on the spot.

  Max gripped Zena’s hand and they ran for their lives. Their only hope was a nearby swamp. They could hide in the mud and slime, with the snakes and the snapping turtles and the razor-sharp grass.

  But then came the biggest explosion of all.

  KABOOM!

  The force ripped Max away from Zena, and sent him flying through the air.

  His body twisted and turned. His mind swirled with terror.

  Smack!

  He landed in a ditch. He lay there, dazed.

  Was he still alive?

  But then there was a thundering crack above.

  Max looked up just in time to see a massive flaming tree crashing down on top of him.

  Max and his nine-year-old sister, Zena, walked along the dark and dirty street, ignoring the rat that skittered by. They hadn’t eaten since last night’s watery potato soup, and they were hoping to find something for supper. They had no money and nothing left to trade. But they weren’t ready to give up.

  Suddenly two German soldiers appeared from around the corner, their boots clicking sharply on the stone sidewalk. Max and Zena jumped into the gutter. Max wanted to curse these men, spit at them, chase them out of his town. But he stood quietly, eyes down, clenching his fists as he waited for the soldiers to pass.

  The men were Nazis, killer soldiers of Adolf Hitler, Germany’s leader. Hitler had started a terrible war. He had sent his brutal armies to invade countries all over Europe. A year ago, Nazi soldiers marched into Esties, the Polish town where Max’s family had lived for hundreds of years.

  The Nazis came with their tanks, their machine guns — and their hatred of Jewish people like Max and Zena.

  Hitler told hideous lies, blaming Jews for every problem in the world. In Esties, Nazi soldiers destroyed Jewish-owned businesses, including Papa’s electrical repair shop. They set fire to the synagogue and ripped apart sacred Torah scrolls. They attacked Jewish people on the streets, including Dr. Latham, who had taken such good care of Mama before she died. What had Dr. Latham done to deserve a beating? He had dared to look at the soldiers as he walked by them.

  Two months after the invasion, the Nazis forced all Jewish people to leave their homes. They all had to move to a ghetto — this bleak neighborhood of crumbling buildings on the edge of town. The ghetto was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and patrolled by Nazi guards and policemen. It was like living in a jail.

  But the worst was to come.

  A month ago, in the middle of the night, policemen arrested Papa and dragged him away. They took dozens of other Jewish men, too. Nobody had any idea where they had been taken. But there were terrifying whispers — about gunshots echoing through the hills around the town, about locked trains that took Jewish people to prison camps.

  Some said that this was happening all around Europe. There were rumors that hundreds of thousands of Jews had been taken away — and had never been heard from again.

  Max didn’t know what to believe.

  All he knew was that each day, life seemed to get worse. He and Zena lived all alone now, in a small, dark room that stank of garbage. As life got harder and harder, Max thought of what his Aunt Hannah had said to him, just after the invasion. She’d put her hands on Max’s shoulders, and looked at him with her glittering green eyes.

  “The Nazis want to take everything from us,” she’d said in her clear and certain voice. “Do not let them take away your hope.”

  Max looked around him now, at the woman limping past with tears in her eyes, at the ragged children slumped in the doorways.

  Finding hope in the ghetto was harder than finding food.

  Just then, Zena grabbed his arm.

  “Max, look!” she said, pointing at a little bird perched on the barbed wire fence at the end of an alley.

  “It’s a robin,” Zena said. “Don’t you know that robins are lucky birds?”

  Max arched an eyebrow at his sister.

  After all that had happened to them, did she really believe there was such a thing as a lucky bird?

  But then he glimpsed something else, just behind the bird: a raspberry bush, covered with bright red berries.

  Max stared, imagining the sweet fruit bursting in his mouth.

  Zena saw them, too.

  He and Zena rushed to the fence and dropped to their knees. They carefully stuck their arms between the wires, avoiding the razor-sharp barbs. They stretched their fingers, but couldn’t reach a single berry. The bush was just a few inches too far away.

  Max looked around.

  He could see no guards watching this area. And there was just enough space under the fence for Max to squeeze through. It was dangerous; anyone caught trying to leave the ghetto was arrested, or worse. But Max wasn’t trying to escape. He would be outside the fence for just a minute or so.

  “I’ll be quick,” he said to Zena.

  “No,” she said. Her blue eyes seemed to grab hold of him. With her blonde curls and round cheeks, people always said Zena looked like a doll. Sure — a doll made of steel. She was almost two years younger than Max, but he trusted her more than anyone else in the world.

  “I’ll get some for us to eat now,” he said. “But I’ll get extra so we can trade for more potatoes.”

  Zena thought for a moment, licking her lips as she eyed the berries.

  She gave Max a grudging nod.

  Before she could change her mind, Max was on his stomach, slithering under the fence. He picked a handful of berries, tossing one to Zena. She caught it and popped it into her mouth, breaking out into the biggest smile he’d seen in weeks.

  But then her face crumbled.

  The robin flew away.

  Max turned just in time to see a Nazi soldier looming over him. Without a word, the man swung his rifle and smacked Max in the side of the head.

  The soldier marched Max along the dusty road leading away from the ghetto. He jabbed him in the spine with the sharp tip of his rifle, barking out German commands Max couldn’t understand. They were heading toward town — to the police station, Max was sure. Nobody who was taken there had e
ver come back.

  A Nazi flag flew above the building now, angry red with a black swastika — the twisted Nazi cross. Max could see it in the distance, a bloodstain on the blue sky.

  Max’s head throbbed from where the soldier had smacked him. But the pain was nothing compared to the fear that churned inside him. What would the Nazis do to him? And what would happen to Zena, alone in the ghetto?

  The thought made him so weak he could barely walk. The soldier gave him a hard shove to keep him moving.

  The road snaked along the river, and from the banks below Max heard laughter and splashing. The sound felt like a cold slap — he could not think of the last time he’d heard such happy noises. But he could remember so clearly those days before the war, when it had been Max and Zena splashing in the cool, clear river, with not one worry in their minds.

  When they were younger, they’d play hide-and-seek with Papa. But sometimes they’d venture too far, and get themselves lost. They’d wander around, scared the forest would swallow them forever.

  But then they’d hear Papa’s voice, calling to them.

  “Max, Zena, where are you?”

  And Max and Zena would cry out, “Papa! We’re here!”

  And soon enough, Papa would appear, a smile on his face. And he always said the same thing.

  “I knew I’d find you!”

  The best times were when Aunt Hannah came along. She was Papa’s sister, just nineteen years old. She’d always been more like a friend to Max than a fussy old aunt. She’d take Max and Zena on hikes, jumping with them from rock to rock, singing their favorite songs.

  People in town gossiped about Hannah — that she was wild, that she cared more about books than finding a husband. Of course Max knew that Hannah didn’t want to get married, not now. She was saving her money to go to America.

  “We’ll all go to America together,” Aunt Hannah would say. “It will be an adventure!”

  And Max would picture himself with Zena and Papa and Hannah, standing at the railing of a grand ship, looking out over the bright blue ocean.

  But like everything else in Max’s world, the Nazis had shattered that dream.

  And where was Aunt Hannah now?

  Max had no idea if she was even alive.

  The last time he knew she was safe was just one day before they had to move into the ghetto.

  It was late at night, and Hannah had come to their house. Max was almost asleep when he heard her voice. He’d almost leaped out of bed to see her.

  But she and Papa were fighting, so Max stayed put.

  “I’m going tonight,” Hannah was saying. “We all must go!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Papa scolded.

  Where was Aunt Hannah going?

  Max strained his ears, but heard no more.

  Finally he crept downstairs, hoping to talk to Aunt Hannah himself.

  But she was gone.

  And when Max went to her house the next day, there was no trace of her.

  “Where did she go?” Max asked Papa.

  Papa just shook his head, and he looked so sad Max decided not to ask again. And then Max figured it out: Aunt Hannah had managed to catch her ship to America. She had left them behind, without even saying good-bye.

  Thinking of Aunt Hannah made Max’s head throb even more as he trudged along the dusty road. He barely heard the rustling sound coming from the bushes.

  But the soldier whirled around, his piglike eyes squinting into the thicket on the side of the road.

  Max’s blood froze when he saw a curly blonde head poking up through the bushes.

  Zena!

  She was crazy to come after him!

  But of course he would have done the exact same crazy thing for her.

  “Achtung!” the soldier barked.

  He aimed his rifle at Zena, pulled back the bolt, and got ready to fire.

  “No!” Max screamed.

  A strange new feeling boiled inside him, furious and black and powerful. It didn’t matter that the soldier was big as an ox, that he had a rifle. Max’s body seemed to move on its own, fueled by a mix of terror and fury.

  With all of his might, Max threw himself against the man.

  The soldier teetered for a second, and then fell with a furious grunt. The rifle flew out of his hands, sailing through the air. When it landed, the rifle butt hit a rock.

  Crack!

  The rifle fired!

  The soldier shouted out in pain and grabbed his leg.

  He’d been hit by his own bullet!

  Max stood there, stunned, as he stared at the blood oozing through the soldier’s fingers.

  The man’s eyes bulged with rage as he spat out German curses. He crawled toward his rifle, clawing the dirt with his fingers, dragging his bloody leg behind him.

  Zena shrieked. “Max, come on!”

  Her voice snapped Max out of his trance.

  He ran to her. They joined hands and took off through the brush, away from the soldier and the ghetto. He had no idea where they could go. But neither of them looked back, and they moved so quickly it seemed as if they were flying. They pushed aside branches, dodged trees, and jumped over roots and rocks. Thorns raked their legs and snagged their clothes. But they ran and ran until finally their bodies gave out.

  “I need to rest,” Zena gasped, reaching for Max’s arm.

  “Up there,” Max wheezed. “We’ll hide in that wheat field.”

  They staggered into the field, wading through the golden stalks until at last they collapsed to the ground.

  They lay there, gulping at the air, trying to catch their breaths. It was a long time before Max’s body stopped shaking, before either of them could speak.

  Finally Zena turned to him.

  “We beat them,” she whispered.

  Max looked at his sister, not sure what she meant.

  But then he understood: Here they were, still alive, not shivering in a jail cell or surrounded by barbed wire.

  Zena was right. They’d fought their own battle against the Nazis.

  And they’d won.

  Max smiled a little, feeling a small burst of power.

  But it soon faded.

  Because he had no idea what they would do next.

  Where could they go?

  The Nazis had invaded every country around Poland, and that blood-red swastika flag now flew over more than ten countries in Europe. For a Jew, there was no safe place for thousands of miles in any direction.

  And it wasn’t only the Nazis from Germany who wanted to hurt them.

  Some people in Esties had joined the Nazis in their terror. This had shocked Max, even though he’d always known there were those in their town who looked down on Jewish people. Max remembered one night when he and Zena and Papa were heading to synagogue. They had passed two young men who cursed and spat at them as they walked by.

  “Hey!” Max had shouted to them.

  But Papa grabbed his arm, hurrying him along.

  “Why did they do that?” Max asked.

  “There is no reason,” Papa answered.

  “Why do they hate us?” Zena asked.

  “Because they have small minds” was Papa’s impatient reply. “It’s as simple as that.”

  But Max had pushed back. “I don’t understand, Papa. What did we do to them?”

  “We did nothing,” Papa said. “It’s always been this way. Jews are different. And some people are suspicious of what they don’t understand.”

  It made no sense. Why be cruel to someone just because they were different?

  And were Jews really so different from everyone else?

  Max thought of his best friends at school. Those boys were just like him! They loved baseball. Tarzan was their favorite comic. They stared at pretty girls but were afraid to talk to them. True, his friends went to church on Sundays and Max went to synagogue on Fridays and Saturdays. But it seemed like they were all learning the same things: to obey God, to respect their parents, to be honest and kind
.

  And yet Max had seen with his own eyes how some of his neighbors had smiled and cheered when the Jews were marched to the ghetto. Many of Esties’s own policemen had helped burn down the synagogue, and were even more vicious than the Nazis.

  It seemed to Max that Hitler had struck a match. With that little spark, old suspicions turned to blazing hatred.

  Zena moved closer to Max now, putting her head on his shoulder.

  “I need to close my eyes,” she said groggily. “Just for a minute.”

  Seconds later, she was fast asleep.

  Max gently wrapped his arm around his sister’s bony shoulders, holding her tight.

  It was dark now, and Max struggled to stay alert, to keep watch. But soon the sound of the rustling wheat lulled Max to sleep, too. His dreams carried him far away, until he found himself on a ship, in the middle of the ocean.

  He stood with Zena, looking out over the water, a salty breeze cooling his face. He could hear Papa’s warm laugh, and Aunt Hannah singing a happy song. Until a man’s voice jarred him awake.

  Max looked up, and his heart stopped.

  There was a tough-looking old man standing over them, with a rifle.

  “Get up now,” the man said.

  The man wasn’t dressed like a soldier; he was wearing work clothes, and his sunbaked face and roughened hands told Max he was a farmer, the man who must own this land.

  Max and Zena stood up, and Max put himself between the farmer and Zena, ready for a fight.

  But then Max noticed something about the man’s craggy face, which was lit up by the moon.

  His expression was tough. But his eyes looked at them with kindness.

  “We must move now,” he said in an urgent whisper. “The Nazis are already searching the farm. And more are coming.”

  And it hit Max.

  This man wanted to help them!

  Seconds later, the roar of truck engines shattered the quiet. Doors slammed and footsteps shook the ground.

  The old farmer pointed to the barn behind the wheat field.

  “They’ve already searched my barn,” he said. “Move quickly. Keep your heads down.”

  “All these soldiers are searching for us?” Max asked.

  There seemed to be hundreds of men!